The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has finally posted updated numbers showing the headcount of employees at each agency as of the second and third quarters on 2023. Note that these numbers do not tell the whole story. They don't account for part time employees nor for overtime. Overtime is a huge part of the story at Social Security. A Full Time Equivalent (FTE) report would cover that but we seldom see FTE reports. Here are Social Security's numbers as of September with earlier headcount numbers for comparison:
- September, 2023 61,410
- June, 2023 60,726
- March, 2023 59,400
- December, 2022 58,916
- September, 2022 57,754
- June, 2022 58,332
- March, 2022 59,257
- December, 2021 60,422
- December 2020 61,816
- December 2019 61,969
- December 2018 62,946
- December 2017 62,777
- December 2016 63,364
- December 2015 65,518
- December 2014 65,430
- December 2013 61,957
- December 2012 64,538
- December 2010 70,270
- December 2009 67,486
- December 2008 63,733
I find the headcount surprising since I read that many SSA employees are retiring or leaving the agency due to the heavy workloads.
ReplyDeleteIn early 2023, SSA got hiring authority for approximately 8,000 FTEs. Then, several months later, the the hiring authority was abruptly terminated due to budgetary constraints with little to no notice, far short of the 8k number.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the numbers for December 2023 (and 1st Qtr 2024 -- the last day for the 2023 leave year was 01/13/24) will both show a drop due to retirements/resignations.
I’d love to know the actual breakdown of these numbers. How many went to PC, to TSC, to FOs (and specifically which regions/areas), how many went to RO and HQ, etc. I know for a fact my FO got no hires, and the sister offices in my area are struggling BAD with employee count.
ReplyDeleteOddly about the same number as a decade ago, nothing really changes.
ReplyDeleteThe Sept number isn’t accurate. If you are an SSA employee, click the Security Stat link from the EIS homepage and read the HR report from today’s meeting. You will see where the numbers actually are.
ReplyDeleteAre the SSA headcount numbers top secret? Why not give us your set of numbers.
DeleteI honestly don’t know if Security Stat is public or not. I know it isn’t CUI internally but I also don’t know if it’s allowed for public dissemination. O’Malley said at his hearings that he wanted this info transparent but I also don’t know if he has made it public. Perhaps someone else feels comfortable sharing it. Its not the headcount that’s the secret, its that the number comes from an executive level briefing.
ReplyDeleteThis is the last positive impact of the big hiring round that got cut short when the GOP started sabre-rattling again and the hiring freeze hit.
ReplyDeleteThe numbers dont look really out of whack or anything, and the end of the big retirement filing is arriving the last few years and forward, so why are the same people now doing less than they did when there was more demand? We are past the 10000 retirements a day now. I dont understand why with lower demand that there is a problem now?
ReplyDeleteThere may be less claims demand happening but with more beneficiaries comes more post entitlement work. Direct deposit changes, tax forms, Medicare B enrollments, appeals and recon requests, address changes, SSA-1099 requests, benefit verification letter requests, payee applications for aging parents/spouses, etc. So claims volume may fall slightly but it doesn’t mean you’re doing any less work.
DeleteThe problem is that the last wave of qualified candidates who received quality training were hired 15+ years ago. The replacements they have hired are largely bottom of the barrel, with poor customer service skills and awful training.
DeleteAlso, the agency has been understaffed and struggling for well over a decade. The agency should have 20,000+ more field office and PC employees in order to provide efficient public service. That's on Congress to provide the funding, which they never will.
anon@2:55pm,
ReplyDeleteThe absolute main problem is that there are simply a lot fewer employees doing the work now and a lot more layers of non-productive management fat on top.
Back when the Republicans did that "Contract with America" BS during the Clinton years, a strict ratio of management to bargaining unit employees was established and adhered to. Management then managed to erode that somewhat when they artificially engineered the MSS position (a job that performed management functions but yet didn't have to be counted as management). And, since then, they have continued to back-fill management slots as hiring becomes available. There are very few offices now that aren't flush with management positions. Now, I know the Clinton years resulted in too few managers. However, I also know of many offices with 10 or less employees total who have both a full manager and a OS/MSS. 20 years ago, that would have been absolutely unthinkable and undoable with the ratio restrictions. These days, it is a routine thing. Our area director has stated as one of his main objectives is that he will pad out management within his offices. To date, he has lived up to his word in our area.
Then, there is the workforce. SSA never gets the cream of the crop when hiring anymore, as it no longer has a good reputation as an employer like it used to. Of the ones it does manage to hire, many just quit once they figure out what they've gotten themselves into. Of the ones that are left, SSA's training for new employees is abhorrently dreadful (think cartoon videos and powerpoints, with more focus placed on things like DEI issues than actual useful workload training). While this situation actually started many years ago, it has degenerated to the point where we are now. Managers shortcut training because they want people doing countable work, and they don't particularly care if they are actually qualified to do the work or not. Our DM recently had a new hire watch a training VOD and, then when she did, pronounced her fully trained on that workload and added a full set of slots for her on the appointment calendar. You end up with a lot of employees that aren't capable of doing their jobs, and high turnover in entry level positions.
Granted, in some cases, certain employees don't do their jobs because they just want a paycheck. They have absolutely no incentive to do better, and fight every attempt to make them do better with a grievance. I've met plenty of those types.
However, there is a much larger segment of the SSA workforce that is capable but legitimately doesn't know how to do things because they weren't trained properly. Those employees don't get more than minimal feedback (PQR reviews are a joke, and you sometimes have reviewers doing reviews that aren't qualified to do the work themselves), so they have no way of improving or even knowing that they are continuously butchering things up. This is true at both the FO and the PSC levels.
Finally, there is also a workload complexity component. 20 years ago, you didn't see dual entitlments, simultaneous entitlements, combined family maximums, Parisi adjustments, 202(j) adjustments, complex attorney fee issues, etc. on every other case. These days, due to the increase in the beneficiary population, the situation involving dual or simultaneous multiple record entitlements due to both parents (or even parents and stepparents) are vastly more common. These types of complex workloads aren't automated and take far more time to properly adjudicate.
SSA provides minimal computational tools to support manual processing of these cases (SSA state of the art is 20 year old computational Excel spreadsheets that are easy to mess up if you don't know how to do them, for gods sake).
Combine this with a workforce that can't do these types of workloads (and in many cases are incapable of even recognizing them), and you get to the point were we are today.
The agency is an absolute clusterflop at this point.
We just lost 2 more yesterday to another agency. Our office started with 23 employees. We’re down to 4.
ReplyDeleteI find it very difficult to believe that COA and benefit letters are taking up as much time as filing a RIB claim, that just doesnt add up. When we see more and more use of MySSA where that all can be handled online with never touching the agency. If you wait an hour for a call back COA on the 800 number takes less than 5 minutes. Just had a major senior housing close down and we helped get everyone through the COAs online and and 800 number. I think that is just a cop out.
ReplyDeleteI also do not believe the myth that every claim coming in is complicated beyond the understanding of mere mortals. Simply not true, I am sure it feels that way if you get a couple back to back, but really it not the case at all. There are not enough in those unique situations to explain the failure we see. I understand that it takes time to process unique claims because of an overcomplicated set of rules and computations but it isnt every other claim. We all do hard stuff every day that isnt like all the regular stuff. Even the barista has to deal with your half caf-decaf-soy milk-choca-moka-latte--vodka-valium order vs a cup of joe.
You must deal mainly with people on Social Security because the average SSI change isn’t taking 5 minutes or less.
DeleteI work in a heavy SSI office and nothing is easy.
I’m sure there are some offices that have it much better but I only know my situation and it’s dire.
anon@11:23am,
ReplyDelete"Myth". That one word reveals that you are making your responses from a theoretical standpoint and that you have never actually processed the workloads you are commenting on.
Lots of things are great, in theory. Maybe you should actually climb down from your ivory tower and see how the rest of the SSA world is barely slogging along.
There is a big difference between reading about things that other people did on a workload management report and actually being able to do them (and actually doing them) yourself. If you knew what you were talking about, your opinion might be worth reading.
Moved 138 seniors. No SSI. Not a one in 138 people. 5 minutes each once we got to a 800 number person with the wait time. 7 workers making the calls. Fact. It was all there but you read to respond not to understand. Even if you work in one of the poorest service areas, like say East St Louis office, not every claim is a trainwreck of complexity. Perhaps it is the quality of the worker and not the work itself. This blog contains countless reports, I think even in this thread, that the workers are not the brightest.
ReplyDeleteYour numbers make no sense, that’s how any SSA employee knows you’re making shit up.
Delete138 T2 address changes, done with 7 workers means each worker did (rounding here) 20~ address changes each. I don’t know what “5 minutes each” means. If that is “5 minutes per individual address change”, that would be 100 minutes, or 1 hour and 40 minutes, per SSA worker just to change their 20 addresses. That’s 11+ “hours” of SSA employees time, given the 7 employees that supposedly helped. This might be accurate as the employee needs to verify the NH, confirm the old address, get the new address, and make the input change to the record. Even if accurate, if you’re too aloof to realize employees are wasting 11+ work hours just changing addresses, then that’s your own issue.
If you’re saying that 20 address changes happened in 5 minutes, for the 7 different phone calls you made, I’m also calling bullshit. That would imply verifying every NH identity, the old address, the new address, and making the input to change all within 15 seconds, and then immediately moving to the next, then the next, then the next, which absolutely did not happen. Any seasoned employee at SSA knows NOTHING is EVER that smooth or easy.
Again, it’s always the people who don’t work for and haven’t ever worked for the agency that think they know how things work and they are always so aloof it hurts.
I will go slow this time.
ReplyDelete7 workers split the people moving into groups.
We called the 800 number. Got in line and requested a call back.
About 45 minutes to an hour later we talked to the 800 number person.
Including Identity verification with the 800 worker, each COA took 5 minutes. we called 138 times each call took 5 minutes. I dont know we may have talked to 138 different 800 people.
Its a COA, not building a Saturn V rocket. It takes 5 minutes and isnt some massive undertaking.
Here I can really blow your mind.
ReplyDeleteIt is possible that 7 people were getting the address changed simultaneously within the same 5 minute period.
But I am beginning to understand the problems with the agency better now. SMH
Congratulations
ReplyDeleteOhhh I really dislike the condescending tone in some of these remarks. Shame on you for not having empathy towards what employees are dealing with in the field. It is absolutely unfortunate that it is impacting the American public but for those in the field offices, it is a damned warzone given our staffing. Detailed staffing information will accurately show the growth of non-front end staffing numbers. The field offices are starving. The 800# cannot answer enough calls? The field office gets calls. Medicare has no appropriate help line? The field office gets the calls. The public doesn’t know how to contact the IRS? They call the SSA field office. Every single complex claim that goes to a WSU by and large, gets transferred to a poorly staffed field office because that is where the most highly-skilled Claims Technicians and Technical Experts are at. Except they are responsible for answering the phones that the 800# cannot handle and developing all of the SSI living arrangement and PE changes that the 800# cannot handle and greeting the public to complete simple tasks that should not require in-person service and should be handled by lower graded service representatives that have dwindled in number. These offices are at a breaking point. And there’s no immediate relief.
ReplyDelete